Part 2 – 2100 sqft House, South Carolina

Posted on: August 25th, 2009 | 6 Comments

2100 sqft House, South Carolina (PDF)
2100 sqft House, South Carolina (Main)
2100 sqft House, South Carolina (Upper)

  • Deborah McP

    3 things most wrong w this house:
    Just as you pointed out, John…
    1. builder failed to acknowledge lack of utility of cramped “living room” at front. If only something more useful/better suited could have been done with that space.
    2. garage uncomfortably tight for two vehicles. Kill 2 birds w one stone… steal space from garage for living room/stairwell/circulation space within living spaces. But that’s my preference.
    3. Measly landing and step into the back garden. Seems an opportunity to connect with outdoors at rear of family room was disregarded. South Carolina, after all. No snow issues.

  • John Y

    I guess nobody feels very strongly about this house!

    Given that it’s South Carolina, the two-story living room won’t have what is usually the biggest drawback of such an arrangement (expensive to heat all of that empty space above), but I still don’t like it as a feature, and would count it as one of my three worst things.

    The circulation downstairs is a problem, including (but not limited to) a tight squeeze through the kitchen and stairs that are far away from the most-used part of the downstairs. I really think that having the stairs come down to the back of the house would be a big improvement (yes, this would require some re-organization upstairs, but I think we covered that territory well yesterday).

    I’m not sure what my third thing with this house is. Instead of having a few glaring things jump out at me, it’s more of a “death by a thousand cuts” issue, where there are a lot of little things that would build frustration over time.

  • Erica Lucci

    1. Formal living room can’t be used effectively. As you pointed out, most of the room is for circulation.
    2. The formal living room extends into the 2nd floor which wastes more space.
    3. Kitchen island is too large & in my opinion oriented in the wrong direction. However, I feel an island is necessary due to the layout.

  • Terri

    1. Location of staircase. I agree with John Y that it should be turned around to allow central circulation. (Obviously this house would have to be laid out quite differently downstairs as well as up.)

    2. Kitchen’s position. If this room were pushed back flush with the family room, there’d be more space for an island that is oriented better and isn’t in the way of traffic to the family room.

    3. The two-storey living room. These two-storey rooms are not that comfortable for sitting in (not just because the present arrangement allows little furniture), as they tend to overwhelm we mere mortals (like churches) and therefore they’re rarely used. They’re a big waste of space both down and up.

  • Doug Roberts

    In my view the worst things about this house are:

    1) inadequate entry spaces;

    2) main floor circulation space intrudes too much into all of the living spaces;

    3) useless 2-storey space at the front of house; and

    4) irregularly shaped family room — the jogs in the south and east walls and the door in the northwest corner would make this room very difficult to furnish.

  • Daniel

    I agree with John B that the front living space is useless once the circulation area is factored in.

    I am a fan of double volume spaces but this one seems token. I would switch the front bedroom and the open space. This would give front exposure to that bedroom. It would also make the open space visible from more areas both upstairs and down. A 2,100 sq ft home can feel pretty small if all of the space is efficiently captured in rooms.

    Overall it’s not a bad design. There are even three of four bedrooms that have exposure to front or back. This may be the best plan to dater on WWWTH.